It was announced yesterday that Sundance ’16 will offer a premiere of Douglas McGrath‘s Becoming Mike Nichols, “an intimate portrait of the director, producer, and improvisational comedy icon…filmed just months before his death…McGrath documents Nichols’s early life as he opens up to his friend and director Jack O’Brien about the storied beginnings of his career.”

The bulk of the doc (which debuts exclusively on HBO on 2.22) is drawn from a two-day interview with Nichols in the summer of 2014. The film has been executive produced by, among others, critic-essayist Frank Rich.

From my 11.20.14 obit: “Some are truly gifted, and if those in that small, choice fraternity are tenacious and lucky and sometimes scrappy enough, they get to develop their gift and turn what they have inside into works that matter for people of all stripes and philosophies. And then there are those gifted types who are fortunate enough to catch a certain inspiration at the right point in their lives, which turns into a wave that carries and defines their finest work for all time to come. This was how things pretty much went for the late and great Mike Nichols.

A couple days ago a piece by N.Y. Post contributor Johnny Oleksinski lamented the absence of the spiritual undercurrent that he recalls from (choke, gag, loogie) the prequels. A ballsy thing to say and yes, I understand what he’s half-getting at but still…yeesh. The overwhelming mantra during Monday night’s post-premiere party was “definitely better than the prequels,” and already Oleksinski is trying to spark nostalgia sentiment for that godawful trilogy? It wouldn’t matter to me if holograms of Jesus, Buddha and Krishna were to issue a prequel endorsement manifesto. The presence of Jar-Jar, Hayden Christensen and Jake Lloyd automatically erase any spiritual currents, now and forever. End of discussion.

“[While] watching director J.J. Abrams’ smug revamp of one of the highest-grossing movie franchises in history, I found myself missing the loathed prequels,” Oleksinski writes. “Or, at least, thinking of them in a more positive light than before. Like an ex after midnight. Sure, they had problems — Jar Jar Binks, midi-chlorians, staid dialogue, Count Dooku. As movies they fail, often spectacularly. But the scorned prequels got one big thing right — the intangible Star Wars spirit. They oozed mythology, gravitas, nonstop momentum and unwavering earnestness — hallmarks of the series at its best. With The Force Awakens, Abrams has made a slight, self-aware, low-stakes movie [that] borrows from the original trilogy with abandon — but in all the wrong ways.”

Even with money to burn in my sleep I would feel badly about forking over $8 grand for Haier Asia’s R2-D2 moving refrigerator. If I was loaded I might cough up a grand for something like this but $8K? (Does JJ Abrams have one in his Bad Robot complex?) Much of the cost of the Haier unit, which was profiled yesterday by cnet.com) has to do with a) Lucasfilm licensing fees, (b) the mobility factor (it travels around 1km per hour) and (c) the 720p HD digital projection capability (“Help me, Obiwan Kenobi — I need a brewski”). The unit will be on display during January’s Consumer Electronics Show in Las Vegas (1.6 thru 1.9).

My first thought was to wait until Stars Wars: The Force Awakens had at least played for a full 12-hour day, but obviously the Thursday night surge was huge so have at it — the forum is open. Most of the responses have been fairly euphoric, but the Thursday nighters are devoted believers and therefore easy lays. I’ll be listening more closely to the Friday and Saturday night crowds, and especially those with the character to cool their jets, bide their time and wait until Sunday. Here’s a Newsday video that was posted last night.

The good…okay, the interesting news is that Criterion will release a digitally restored Bluray based on a 4K harvest of John Frankenheimer‘s The Manchurian Candidate (’62) on 3.15.16. The bad news is that they’ve decided to chop the aspect ratio down to 1.75, which will deliver a bit less height than the 1.66 that’s been the home video standard for many years.

Would it do any good to say I’ve seen Candidate projected at 1.66:1 and that it looks beautiful that way? I can’t swear to it, but I recall that the MGM/UA laser disc of Candidate had a 1.66 a.r., and I know for an absolute damn fact that 1.66 was used for the MGM/UA laser disc of Frankenheimer’s The Train.

More height is always right. How does it add to The Manchurian Candidate‘s visual allure to slice off a portion of the top of the image? I’ve never understood this sick impulse and I don’t want to understand it. Perverse and inexplicable.

Yes, I might buy the Criterion version but only because I love the design of the cover jacket. Is there really going to be a substantive image-quality difference between the ’04 Bluray and the Criterion? Maybe if you have an 80″ or 100″ screen but I wonder if I’m really going to see a whopping difference on my 60″ Samsung.

Did anyone like or even see Jared Hess‘s Don Verdean, which popped 12.11 on VOD? I caught it 11 months ago at Sundance ’15 and said the following (and yes, I know I’ve posted this a couple of times since): “I wanted to at least quietly enjoy this satire of rightwing religious foolery and fraudulence. But it just wouldn’t let me go there, and I’m saying this as a fan of Sam Rockwell, who plays the titular character — a bullshit archeologist and discoverer of Biblical relics. The only good thing is New Zealand-based actor-comedian Jermaine Clement, who plays Boaz, a corruptible Israeli guide.” Costarring Amy Ryan, Leslie Bibb, Will Forte and the demonic Danny McBride. Hess (Napoleon Dynamite) directed and co-wrote somebody from his family with the first name of “Jerusha.”

Tina Fey‘s performance as a war correspondent in Glenn Ficarra and John Requa‘s Whiskey Tango Foxtrot appears to be something outside her usual realm. The “journalistic dramedy” is based on Kim Barker‘s 2011 memoir “The Taliban Shuffle,” which chronicled her journalism adventures in Afghanistan and Pakistan. Then again pic’s approach has been described as “semi-fictionalized” — i.e., Barker’s tale shoehorned into a Tina Fey movie or a relatively honest adaptation with Fey-like humor and attitude thrown in…pick. I’m paying $30 something for Gogo in-flight wifi access and I can’t even snag the trailer’s embed code.

Right now I’m doing the old LAX-to-JFK Virgin America suffering thing. Seat 8C, aisle. 4:46 pm Eastern and another two and a half hours to go — ETA 7:30 pm. And then the real fun starts wth luggage carousel, Air Train, subways, lugging bags up steep steps, etc. You know what reduces the ennui of flying? Percocet. A friend sold me a few last night.

In a 12.17 Hollywood Reporter round-table discussion moderated by Stephen Galloway and Matthew Belloni and titled “Amy Schumer, Aaron Sorkin and Four More Top Scribes on Sexism and How to Deal With Steve Jobs’ Widow,” Schumer talks about last February’s Schumergate episode: “The things that you’re afraid they’re going to say are so much worse than anything they actually say. But you’ve already put your nervous system through that fear.

“With Trainwreck coming out, I was like, ‘Everyone’s going to say she’s not pretty enough to be in this movie.’ And then only one dude wrote that, and people really attacked him, and then he redacted that and wanted to date me. I’ve been waiting for this rainstorm of hate, and it’s never really come.”

Schumer isn’t far off but what I felt was more of a spiritual kinship thing. Her Trainwreck performance melted me down, and I became a total fan. As I wrote last July, “I was persuaded that the movie version of ‘Amy’ is who Schumer really is deep down, and that realization touched me like very few comedies have in my entire life. I’ll never say a word against her again.” And for expressing this I was called a phpny and a liar.

Yesterday afternoon I pulled into the WeHo Gelson’s (Santa Monica & Kings Road) and hung a right and then a left. There were two idling cars in their parking spots, youngish women at both wheels, presumably looking to exit but opposite each other and apparently concerned about who should go first. So neither moved. An old guy behind me honked and yelled “c’mon!” Then the woman closest to me (late 20s, brunette, new car) lurched slightly backward and then stopped, apparently worried about not having enough room behind her. But she was fine — all she had to do was back up and then turn and go. She was obviously the churchmouse type so I reversed two or three feet to give her more space. The old guy didn’t like this and honked again. But the woman still sat there. She turned in her seat and looked at me. Another honk. I got out and walked over to her vehicle (the window was rolled down) and said, “Want some help? I can guide you out.” Woman: “Can you back up a bit?” Me: “I’ve already backed up and there’s a guy honking behind me. You’ve got plenty of room. You can do it…really.” She sighed and frowned and then VERY slowly began to back out. It took her a good two minutes so make it into the middle lane and leave. I could offer a gender generalization but I’d just get into trouble on Twitter again. But try to imagine a self-respecting dude causing a Gelson’s logjam like this.

Steven Soderbergh at peak strength. My kind of L.A. action flick, my kind of father-daughter film, my kind of half-and-halfer (revenge flick, dark comedy), my kind of Peter Fonda movie, my kind of director-screenwriter (Soderbergh, Lem Dobbs) audio commentary track…one of the most exquisitely right, droll, socially resonant crime films ever made, and an all-time upgrader of The Hollies’ “King Midas In Reverse.” I’m sorry but one Limey is worth at least…I can’t decide on the less-good film but it’s worth at least ten of it.